New NVIDIA Platform Technology for Athlon 64 / XP

Performance Testing and System Setup

Now that we have looked at the features that NVIDIA’s new platforms offer the user, we will turn to what performance they can offer as well.  Since we are in fact previewing two seperate chipsets for two seperate system platforms, we’ll have two sections of benchmarks: one for the Athlon XP nForce2 Ultra 400 Gb and another for the Athlon 64 nForce3 250 Gb.

nForce2 Ultra 400 Gb – The last hurrah for the Athlon XP as we know it?

Our benchmarks for the Athlon XP platform will be short and sweet, as there was no modification to the north bridge part of the chipset, and thus performance is unchanged from its predecessor, the original nForce2 Ultra 400. 

Here is the system setup for our benchmarks on this platform:

nForce3 250 Gb – NVIDIA’s 2nd try for the Athlon 64

Because we did see good performance gains going from the nForce3 150 to the nForce3 250 chipset, we’ll be showing you the full range of benchmarks for this platform. 

Here is the system setup for those benchmarks: